WORCESTER singers have given their own special musical tribute to the Second World War heroes of the 1st Battalion Worcestershire Regiment - at the very spot in France where they fell.

On the outskirts of the town of Vernon, members of Elgar Chorale gathered around a stone memorial - a piece of Malvern rock bearing a plaque - where their director Dr Donald Hunt conducted them in Elgar's As Torrents In Summer. Chorale chairman David Wright, accompanied by Vernon's deputy mayor and chairman of its twinning association Monsieur Michel Guibout and Peter Rogers, committee member of Worcester Twinning Association, laid a wreath.

The ceremony, in a wooded lay-by on the road to Tilly, slightly north west of Paris, was watched by members of Vernon Twinning Association. In the evening, the chorale gave a concert in Vernon's church, featuring works by French composers, Monteverdi, and Elgar.

The visit to Vernon was the highlight of a week's tour which also saw the group perform in Worcester's twin town Le Vésinet and Rouen, home city of composer Pierre Villette, with whom Dr Hunt had a long-standing musical association.

On August 27, 1944, the 1st Worcestershire Regiment, commanded by Lt Col RE Osborne Smith and part of the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry division, fought through torrential rain and steep wooded territory to secure and hold on to a bridgehead.

They were facing a counter-attack from German infantry, which included Tiger tanks, and 26 Worcestershires lost their lives.

However, it was this bridgehead that enabled 750 British tanks to advance through northern France and liberate Brussels and Antwerp on September 3 and 4.

The memorial is on the site of the battalion headquarters and the reigmental aid post and stone placed there by surviving comrades.

Peter Rogers, was instrumental in setting up a friendship pact between Worcester and Vernon, signed last year by the mayor of each, after he heard about the battle during a private visit to the area.

"What struck me with the Worcestershires' involvement in the liberation was the way Vernon remembered it," he said. "They still lay wreaths every August at the graves of the soldiers who died and are buried in the area."

He said it was highly appropriate for the first group to go to Vernon since the signing of the friendship pact was Elgar Chorale which had been given the opportunity to remember and pay respects to the Worcestershires who died.